Beschreibung:

THE ANNUNCIATION by CRISTOFORO CORTESE, a large historiated initial cut from an Antiphonary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum[Italy (Veneto, probably Venice), early 15th century (first decade)]
a cutting, c. 160 × 150mm, trimmed to the edges of the decoration, the reverse with fragments of two lines of text and music in square notation on four-line red staves, comprising part of the antiphon ‘Et unde hoc mihi’ (‘sunt tibi a do[mino]’) for the feast of the Annunciation, the initial ‘M’ therefore probably from the antiphon ‘Missus est Gabriel angelus’ for the same feast day; the image divided into two parts by the vertical of the letter ‘M’, with a bed in a domestic interior in the background to the right and books on a lectern to the left, the Virgin Mary sitting in the foreground, apparently turning away in surprise or fear from the half-length figure of Gabriel who appears in the sky to the upper left, holding a lily in his left hand and blessing with his right; set into a tissue support inscribed in pencil ‘Kraus 21/12/95’ and with the black ink stamp of ‘Giuseppe Baldisse’ with a lion (not visible as currently framed); with some overall wear, flaking of gold, and smudging of Gabriel’s garments and cloud, the colours still bright and the gold still reflective; in a double-sided giltwood frame.
PROVENANCEFrom an Antiphonary commissioned in 1401 for the Dominican nunnery of Corpus Domini, Venice, founded in 1395; it is recorded that a Psalter and Antiphonaries were being produced between 1400 and 1402.Madame Fould: her anonymous sale in Paris, 6 December 1926, lot 50: ‘Ravissante enluminure siennoise des premières années du xv° siècle’, bought by M. Horst.Sold at Christie’s, 21 June 1988, lot 1 (‘? Florence or Siena, late fourteenth century’); bought by:Helen and Nereo (d. 1999) Fioratti: The Martello Collection (see Boskovits, 1992); presumably deaccessioned to:H.P. Kraus, New York: inscribed in pencil ‘Kraus 21/12/95’, perhaps the acquisition note of:Giuseppe Baldisse: his ink stamp on the tissue support.Sold in our rooms, 5 July 2016, lot 25, bought by:The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1433
ILLUMINATIONAn important and impressive illumination. ‘Cristoforo Cortese was the most important and prolific Venetian illuminator of the first half of the fifteenth century. … For almost forty years he maintained a monopoly over the illustration of Venetian manuscripts, not only liturgical texts but also humanistic and devotional works’ (Toniolo, 2021, p. 367).
The attribution to Cristophoro Cortese (d. 1445) was first made verbally by Miklós Boskovits to Daniela Parenti, who wrote the description for the 1992 Martello Collection catalogue, backed-up by a detailed stylistic analysis. He worked not only as an illuminator but also as a panel painter (Marcon, 2004; Toniolo, 2021), over a career that spanned almost half a century: he was first mentioned as a ‘miniator’ in the Mariegola of the Scuola di S. Caterina dei Sacchi, Venice (Venice, Correr, MS. IV, 118), written before the end of the 14th century, and he is known to have died in 1445. He signed a few works, including a cutting now in Paris (Musée Marmottan, Wildenstein Collection, M6076), and on the basis of stylistic comparison, numerous other illuminations have been attributed to him and his circle.
From an art-historical perspective Cortese is particularly interesting partly because his style changed significantly over the course of his long career. The present cutting belongs to a group of initials that are ‘the earliest known works of Cristoforo Cortese, the most famous and prolific Venetian illuminator of the first half of the fifteenth century’ (Palladino, 2003, p. 71), as was first realised by Gaudenz Freuler, who identified the commission from which the cutting derives (Freuler, 2001). Palladino (2003) expanded on this discovery, and the group has recently been studied again in greater detail by Federica Toniolo (2021): they come from an Antiphonary made for the Dominican convent of Corpus Domini, Venice, and there are documentary sources that refer to the production for the convent of a Psalter and Antiphonals from at least 1400 until at least 1402.
REFERENCESGalerie Georges Petit, Paris, Catalogue des enluminures de hautes époques, tirées des manuscrits et antiphonaires … appartenant à Madame X…, 6 December 1926, lot 50 (ill.).
M. Boskovits, ed., The Martello Collection: Further Paintings, Drawings, and Miniatures, 13th–18th Century (Florence, 1992), pp. 48–51.
G. Freuler, in Catalogue 10: Enluminures / Illuminations – Moyen Age, Renaissance, Middle Ages (Les Enluminures: Chicago and Paris, 2001), no. 29.
P. Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (New York, 2003), cited at p. 72.
S. Marcon, in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: secoli IX–XVI, ed. by M. Bollati (Milan, 2004), pp. 176–79.
F. Toniolo, in The Burke Collection of Italian Manuscript Paintings, ed. by S. Hindman and F. Toniolo (London, 2021), pp. 367–79, no. 37, citing the present cutting at pp. 370, 377.